In a large interdisciplinary engineering project spanning multiple timezones, each participant may require read-only access to thousands of files while retaining write authority to only a few hundred. Some of the files are related in a logical hierarchy while others are related in a physical hierarchy. Many of the files evolve over time and participants may at one time want access to the most recent version of a certain file and at others desire a stable collation. Thus the files that concern one participant will be different from another and multiple versions of a certain file may be appropriate for various roles.
Moreover concentration of files into centralized servers has been observed to increase congestion and lower both accessibility and reliability. Centralized servers require heavier investment in information technology and redundancy while duplicating storage.
Referring now to FIG. 1, it is known that a user 111 operating a workstation 112 may read and write files on a local file store 113 as well as on network attached file stores coupled to workstations 122 and servers 182. Lack of version control, poor security, and excessive disk usage are common byproducts of this architecture. Substantial congestion has been observed if all files are exclusively stored in a centralized server.
Thus it can be appreciated that what is needed is coherent management of all files committed to a project with distributed storage and improved data block accessibility.